At 54, Béatrice Dalle Is France’s Biggest Red Carpet Rebel

Even at 54, Béatrice Dalle knows how to bring her wild-child attitude to the red carpet. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the actress showed up in a full Saint Laurent number in support of her role in Gaspar Noe’s newest film, Lux Æterna. In keeping with her characteristic all-black, moto-goth look, Dalle wore a leather jacket, black T-shirt, skinny jeans, and uber-high stomper-platform boots. For a hint of macabre glam, she wore a large cross necklace and a fistful of rings. Just a few days ago, her co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg arrived at Nice airport wearing a similar pared-back look à la Dalle that included jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket.

Dalle has long been the enfant terrible of French cinema, as well as one if its most chic representatives at worldwide film festivals. For years, she’s been known to saunter onto the red carpet with a carefree swagger, often with a cigarette in hand (or hanging from her mouth) while simultaneously signing autographs. Her look is chameleonic: Dalle may arrive in a skimpy and clingy slip dress, as she did in Cannes in 2003 at the Le Temps du loup premiere, or go the dark-glam route in a black silk halter dress that shows off her back tattoo (as in 2004, for the film The Ladykillers). Thankfully, there’s a signature Dalle feature that no one can replicate: her ear-to-ear beaming gap-toothed smile.